BU Today: Why did you choose to attend BU?

Frometa: [The Boston University Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies] was the main draw. I wanted to be surrounded by a globally minded community, where people were genuinely informed and not just curious. I remember updating my [colleges] research doc with facts about the Global Development Policy Center they have, because a lot of their work was reflective of some of the questions that led me to declare international relations as my major—like, why do certain countries develop the way they do, and how does that impact people? The appeal grew when I found out that BU had a lot more international students than other universities in the area. 

I also wanted something new—hockey, real winters, lobsters—and the Bay Area definitely didn’t have those. I remember touring campus the summer before senior year and using the “Jenga building” [Duan Family Center for Computing & Data Sciences] as a reference point for finding our car. I loved the city vibes.

BU Today: How did your global experiences shape who you are and what you hope to do in life?

Frometa: My parents’ careers have taken me all over the world. When I was young, my mom practiced and taught midwifery in Guanajuato, Mexico. We eventually returned to California, and then in 2021, my family relocated to Lesotho, following my stepfather’s work bringing solar energy access to rural communities. Lesotho is a small and mountainous country, landlocked inside South Africa, and rural in a lot of ways, but rich in culture. From there, we moved to Cape Town, where I began high school.

What those experiences gave me was an eye for how global systems play out at the local level. My mom’s work was about giving communities healthcare autonomy, and my dad’s was about energy autonomy. That parallel didn’t fully click for me until I was doing my own work back home as a city intern, figuring out how our community could be economically autonomous from a big Chevron refinery. Similar ideas, different continents. I want to continue this in college.

BU Today: What aspect of international relations will you study at Pardee?

Frometa: A regional focus on Latin America and a thematic focus on environment and development. I want to understand how the economic relationships between nations create and reinforce cycles of inequality—and how other actors, such as businesses, exploit those relationships.

BU Today: Can you talk about some of the activities you pursued in high school?

Frometa: I was the elected chair of my high school Site Council—a student, administrator, and parent body that oversees the allocation and implementation of roughly $78,000 of district funds toward the school site. I helped mediate debates about where to put money and brought in guests to speak about where money was needed. I was also copresident of our French Honor Society, and responsible for organizing our immersion events. These included French film movie nights, volunteering at our local Alliance Française, or just weekly meetings on francophone culture and fluency.

My interest in Model UN comes from my news junkie habits [and] being interested in global events. There was a lack of spaces to discuss these things, so my friends and I started a Model UN team to make that environment a reality for everyone. I was the main trainer and taught novices about topics ranging from trade to international organizations and their functions.

I credit my AP French teacher, Madame Tindol, for inspiring me to continue French at a collegiate level and embrace language learning more broadly. She encouraged me to become involved with the French clubs and school and engage with the language beyond the classroom. With her advice, I drew more parallels between French and Spanish, both linguistically and culturally. Her mentorship has since inspired me to explore more languages in the Romance family because of how interconnected they are.

BU Today: What are your hobbies and interests when you’re not cracking the books?

Frometa: Huge foodie. I love spending time learning, exploring, and tasting new dishes and platters. If I’m going somewhere new or have a day out, I’ll almost always sit down and find somewhere new to eat. My Google Maps is littered with flagged locations across the Bay Area, and recently Boston, of restaurants ranging from Turkish to Ethiopian to Dominican, and so much more. I’m super looking forward to joining Spoon University @ BU, a student food publication club dedicated to highlighting local restaurants.